Utopia film exposes Australia's apartheid

Vanguard March 2014 p . 6
Max O.

 

John Piliger's new film, "Utopia" presents the case that racist policies against the Aboriginal people still continue in Australia 28 years after he made his first film, "Secret Country". The film exposes the shocking and brutal discrimination meted out to Australia's First Peoples by detailing the hypocrisy and outright contempt that still exists from political leaders to the police force.

The initial images that are presented to the audience (CCTV footage of a Aboriginal man being smashed against a wall, dragged along a floor and then thrown into a cell and left to die; a film clip which shows police officers who cruelly taser an Aboriginal boy) set the tone of what this film is all about - a tale of conquest, genocide, brutality, theft, discrimination and destitution.

The movie's name is taken from the Aboriginal community of Utopia, 250 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs. The appalling living conditions that this community has to endure are contrasted with the hugely expensive holiday apartments on the Sydney beaches that overlook the Pacific Ocean.

The litany of shameful treatment continues when the Mutujulu community's dilapidated asbestos buildings are compared with the nearby Uluru luxurious eco tourist hotel.

The enforcers of the law are again put under the spotlight when the film examines the death of Eddie Murray in 1991, who died of a smashed sternum whilst in a police lock-up in Wee Waa, NSW. Then there is the killing of Ian Ward who died in 2009 while being transported in a virtually sealed police van where the temperature reach 56° Celsius and he was cooked to death. None of the police or correctional officers were prosecuted.

Pilger outlines the successful Aboriginal struggles of the Wee Waa Aboriginal cotton weeders and pickers, who were grossly under paid and subjected to aerial spraying, who struck for better wages and conditions and the successful Wave Hill/Gurindji walk off (1966/77) that eventually led to their land rights.

The history of Rottnest island, just off the coast of Perth, is also investigated. The island's old gaol is now a spruced up holiday resort but was used in the 19th century as a concentration camp for troublesome Aborigines. This fact is not pointed out to the holiday visitors.

The expunged history of Indigenous Australians continues with Pilger's visit to the Australian War Memorial. Here he was refused permission to film, after asking why there was no display of the frontier wars where black Australians fought the British invasion of their country.

The mentality of this denial is dramatically summed up by Australia's first prime minister, Edmund Barton who in 1901 crafted the White Australia Policy. The film reiterates his words of the time, "The doctrine of equality of man was never intended to apply to those not British and white-skinned."

Parliamentarians were given the chance to justify their policies for Aboriginal people in the film and they proved wanting. Whilst they are proud to have Aboriginal art in their offices they take offence when questioned why they have not solved the issue of the First Australians being the poorest, sickest, most oppressed section of the population. For example Warren Snowden, former Labor Minister for Indigenous Health, took shelter with the angry reply to Pilger, "What a stupid question. What a puerile question."

The appalling record of parliament continues in the film with the Howard government's 2007 Northern Territory intervention. Police-military rule was deployed and the hand over of local community land leases were demanded otherwise basic services would be withdrawn. The intervention was justified on the spurious assertion that Aboriginal children needed to be rescued from widespread sexual abuse that was going on in Aboriginal communities.

ABC's TV Lateline programme supplied the so-called evidence. An anonymous "youth worker" appeared disguised in a camera interview making outrageous claims about Aboriginal paedophile rings. Later the supposed "youth worker" turned out to be a senior government official and the Lateline programme refused to comment publicly that there was no evidence to back up their claims.

As was commonly understood the purpose of the intervention was to demonise these Aboriginal communities and take over the land for the benefit of the mining companies.

The film is uncomfortable viewing for Non-indigenous Australians. Anmatyerr elder, Rosalie Kunoth Monks, from Utopia, sums up the matter of their oppression when she points out that their sovereignty was never ceded and the land was stolen from them.

As Pilger states, the Aboriginal peoples' struggle for freedom will only start to be achieved when their sovereignty is officially recognised and a treaty is entered into between Indigenous and Non-indigenous Australia.

Pete Seeger - a voice raised for the people

Vanguard, March 2014 p. 7
Nick G.

Pete Seeger passed away on January 27 at the age of 94.

It is right to acknowledge his enormous contributions to the body of songs and music that come from, and are sung for, the people.  He helped keep alive a history of working people’s complaints and hopes expressed through music – and not just US working people: he incorporated into his repertoire people’s music that he gleaned from around the world.

He sang, with Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land at Barak Obama’s inauguration.  He pulled no punches.  Woody was a communist at heart and had written a verse that many other artists ignored.  Seeger dictated the words as he encouraged all present to sing:

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

 It is right to acknowledge his front line advocacy of civil rights, particularly those of black citizens of the US, and his defiance, as a Communist, of the McCarthyite witch-hunts.  In defence of his own civil liberties, he refused to plead the Fifth Amendment before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  His example of open defiance of the Committee was inspiring:

“I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this.”

This led to a conviction for contempt of Congress and a one-year gaol sentence, subsequently dismissed by an appeals court.  He was a staunch opponent of US wars of aggression.

It is right to acknowledge his tireless work for the environment and for his pet project:  cleaning up his own backyard -  the Hudson River in New York State.  In his second to last performance, at last September’s Farm Aid concert, he again sang This Land Is Your Land, adding a final anti-fracking verse.

Seeger claimed to have become a communist when as a 7 year old he began reading about US First Nations (“Indian”) peoples.  He made himself a tepee, lived in it and tracked animals.

“Indians shared within each tribe,” he wrote in a 2005 letter to a friend. “If there was food, everyone ate.  If there was hunger, everyone was hungry, even the learned chief and his wife and children.  When I was twenty I learned that anthropologists called this ‘tribal communism’”.

He joined the Young Communist league in 1937 at age 18, and graduated to full membership of the Communist Party after serving in the US Army for three years during World War Two.

However, his membership did not last.  Between his 1956 appearance before the McCarthyites and his 1957 indictment for contempt of Congress came the so-called “Secret Speech” in which new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin.

Khrushchev spoke with the prestige and authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  Under the guise of seeking to dismantle a personality cult around Stalin, Khrushchev painted a horrifying picture of abuses of power, of gross injustice, of murder and dictatorial practice.

Leaked almost immediately to the anti-communist US press, reactionaries everywhere had a field day with the so-called “revelations” of the “tyranny of communism”.

Seeger was not alone in being unable to withstand the pressure placed on his commitment to communism and left the CPUSA.

We should not judge too harshly those who, like Seeger, were unable to keep the faith.

Likewise, we should eulogise those who rejected Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin for what it was – an attempt to change the direction of the Soviet Party under the guise of a rejection of “Stalinism”.

It is only now, with the partial opening of former Soviet archives and the work of researchers such as Montclair University’s Professor Grover Furr, that we can state with some assurance that virtually every claim against Stalin made by Khrushchev was a lie.

That research and that knowledge was unavailable to Seeger.

In a sealed 1956 letter to his grandchildren, and in the wake of Khrushchev’s “revelations”, Seeger praised the ethics and commitment of Communists he had known and worked with.

“…when I think of communism, I not only think of this (the Khrushchev speech –ed).  I think of the communists I have known.  Bravery, steadfastness and, yes, continual intellectual searching and thinking. Every communist leader I have known has lived his life in the frank knowledge that it was unlikely that he or she would live their lives through without suffering jail sentences and possibly cruel death because of their beliefs.  I never knew people so intent upon a long-range goal to make this a better world to live in.  They were not content to say, ‘tsk tsk’ about such a thing as Jim Crow. They organised a committee or something and agitated and propagandized for its abolition.  They gave of their time and money to a fantastic degree.  Their entire lives were dedicated not to personal success, but to changing a selfish and evil world into one where all mankind could truly be comrades.”

Despite his departure from the CPUSA, his description of the qualities of communists paints a pretty good picture of the man himself.

What has US occupation given to the women of Afghanisatn?

Vanguard March 2104 p. 7
Nick G.

The much-vaunted “liberation” of Afghanistan’s women -  key justification for US imperialist invasion and occupation of that country – is to receive yet another set-back at the hands of the Karzai regime.

The Afghan parliament, the Loyal Jurga, is set to pass a law that will allow people to attack their wives, sisters and daughters without fear of punishment.

The law will stop relatives of an attacker from testifying against them -- effectively silencing women who experience domestic violence, along with other members of their family who have witnessed the abuse.

The proposed law reflects the strength of reactionary patriarchal ideology within the Loyal Jurga, as well as the  Karzai government’s determination to welcome the anti-women Taliban into the government.

In a statement last year on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the US occupation of Afghanistan, RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, commented:

“The US government and its allies promised our people democracy, but imposed upon them the most undemocratic, corrupt, and mafia government of our history; they spoke of ‘war on terror’ but brought the murderers and terrorists of the Northern Alliance, gun-lords and drug kingpins to power, and have now extended their hands in friendship to the Taliban; the US used human rights and women’s rights as an excuse, but Afghanistan still faces the worse kinds of human rights violations and horrifying catastrophes against its women; they promised our people liberation and freedom, but practically turned our country into a narco-state and the center of their longest-running criminal war.”

An international campaign is underway to force President Hamid Karzai to refuse approval for the new law.

As RAWA has consistently pointed out, human rights abuses and the oppression of women will only be able to be dealt with in an independent Afghanistan freed of US imperialist occupation, and with a democratic government prepared to confront the militarists, the drug lords and the reactionary leaders who demand women’s oppression.

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See also: http://www.rawa.org/index.php 

"Hands off Aussie Post": the closing of the Geelong Mail centre and privatisation of Australia Post

Vanguard March 2014 p. 8
Alex M. and Alice M.

 

The wind whipped the Eureka and unions flags outside the Geelong Mail Centre in North Geelong on Monday 3 February. A group of concerned citizens, unionists, postal workers and others gathered to protest at Australia Post’s imminent cuts to jobs and postal services in Geelong and the looming privatisation of the last few remaining public assets in Australia.

 

In the past few years the people of Geelong and the region have been at the pointy end of a devastating loss of local industries and the disappearance of thousands of jobs. Local people and communities don’t want even more job losses and cuts to community services.

The cuts to postal jobs and services are part of the government cost-cutting and preparations to sell off Australia Post’s parcels operations – the most profitable section of the business.

In the last financial year Australia Post made a healthy net profit of $312 million, and paid $244 million dividend to the government on top. The CEO of Australia Post and ex-chief of the NAB, Ahmed Fahour, paid himself $4.75 million for his services to big business.

Profits in the parcels part of the business are growing because of large increase in volumes while the wages of postal workers remain low. The retail and letter deliveries are also making smaller profits, but are not running at a loss.

Local and big business demands government puts Australia Post up for sale so they can get their hands on the profitable parcels business. At the same time, government and big business want to slash spending on the less profitable community retail and household mail delivery services.

Imperialism drives privatisation

The push to privatise Australia Post is not something Abbott or even the Business Council of Australia dreamed up.

The push for privatisation of national postal services, slashing jobs and community services, is on the march globally. International monopoly capital and multinational corporations are scouring every corner of the world for new profitable investments and markets, demanding privatisation of lucrative public services and the shifting more of public funds to them.

It is in this context that the Commonwealth government has appointed a Commission of Audit with a clear agenda to slash public expenditure, cut services to the public, lay-off Public Servants, privatise state owned enterprises, but of course not cutting MP’s or CEO’s wages and perks or increasing taxes on the multinational corporations and big business.

At the Geelong rally, Ged Kearney the ACTU President addressed the crowd, as did Joan Doyle the Victorian Branch Secretary of the Communications Workers Union (Postal and Telecommunication Division).

They condemned the plans to slash services, cut jobs and privatise publically owned assets. Ged Kearney spoke about the importance of Australia Post to community and small business. She said the profit motive should not be the sole determinant of what services are provided to the public:

“It's all built on the [misconception] that an organisation like Australia Post has to run at a profit, it doesn't. Mail delivery is one of those things that keeps communities connected; it’s something that every civil society should have. Not only that, it provides good decent public service jobs that are the heart and soul of communities like Geelong.”

Kearney said the Commission of Audit was set up to pave the way for harsh cuts to public and community services and privatisation.

“No one seriously expects the Commission of Audit (headed by Tony Shepherd, President of the Business Council) will recommend anything other than privatisation, outsourcing and cuts to public services and jobs.

“We are likely to see recommendations to broaden the scope and raise the Goods and Services tax, including extending it to food… Another favourite of big business agenda is to outsource more public services to the private sector.”

An alternative – a government bank

The union and postal workers have a different, practical agenda to the big business’ demands for the privatisation of Australia Post. They are arguing that the government should utilise the present nation-wide Australia Post infrastructure to establish a government bank and other financial services run by the federal government.

In his first term, former Prime Minister Rudd meekly raised this proposal. However, the four major banks and their international money-bags killed off the idea before it was even heard by the public.

Pity Rudd didn’t go to the people, instead of begging for approval from global financial oligarchies.

It was a similar story with the super profits mining tax. If Rudd had gone to the people, defying threats from the mining monopolies and big banks, he would have unleashed unstoppable public support. And that’s why he didn’t!

The Geelong rally is part of a wider, national ongoing campaign to resist moves to privatise Australia Post under the slogan ‘Hands off Aussie Post’. Let’s get behind this campaign!

The struggle to stop the privatisation of Australia Post and advocating for a government bank operated through publicly-owned Australia Post is part of the movement to free Australia from imperialism, and building a vision for an independent and socialist Australia.

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Further reading:

Canadians are facing a similar fight to keep their postal services.

See http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2014/D44010.htm#2 (scroll down to second article)

 

 

 

Large rally in defence of democratic rights

Vanguard March 2014 p. 8
Bill F.

On February 18, more than 4000 people marched from the Victorian Trades Hall to Parliament House in Melbourne to protest about state government plans to crack down on protests, picket lines and social action.

The Napthine government is introducing amendments to the Summary Offences Act which allow police to require people to "move on" if they are "causing a reasonable apprehension of violence in another person" (such as a scab?) or "undue obstruction to another person or persons in traffic" (such as a street march) or "impeding or attempting to impede another person from lawfully entering or leaving premises" (such as a picket line).

Police can also apply for an "exclusion order" from a Magistrate banning people from the area for 24 hours, with a penalty of two years jail.

Speakers at the rally included Brian Boyd, Secretary of the Victorian trades Hall Council, Kevin Bracken, Secretary of the Maritime Union, activist Father Bob MaGuire, and Anna Brown from the Human Rights Law Centre.

The Napthine government tried to justify this vicious legislation by citing a few instances of pushing and shoving at the East-West tunnel protests, but the real reasons were covered in the speech by Brian Boyd at the start of the rally.

"The politicians know that social discontent occurs when the unemployment rate rises, especially when there is no prospect of getting a new job.

"Many government policies are causing concern and angst. Planning issues, environmental issues, public transport issues, education and health issues are all negatively impacting in the community.

All of this leads to people wanting to protest, to air their grievances.

"While massive profits are sent overseas and corporate tax liabilities are avoided, basic social services are cut or reduced at the same time.

"Dr Napthine is gearing up his "law and order" machine for the backlash."

Big business is drafting Abbott's horror budget

Vanguard February 2014 p. 1
Bill F.

The federal budget is due to be released by Treasurer Joe Hockey in May this year. It promises to be a blueprint for savage austerity measures and increased attacks on the livelihood of the working people.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his motley crew have out-sourced the job of drawing up targets for harsh austerity cuts and anti-worker legislation to their mates in the Business Council of Australia (BCA).

The BCA should more properly be known as the “Big Business” Council of Australia, since it is comprised of the 100 biggest companies in this country, many of them foreign corporate monopolies or companies with large foreign share-holdings. It represents the most powerful and influential core of monopoly capitalism in Australia.

No surprise therefore, that Abbott has appointed Tony Shepherd, straight from his role as president of the “Big Business” Council, to head up his Commission of Audit which will examine all government spending and services and suggest/order where the axes will fall and what will be out-sourced or privatised. “All items are on the table” said Shepherd when asked about extending the rate and scope of the Goods and Services Tax.

Just to be sure that no detail is missed and no section of the working people escapes unharmed, the Executive Officer for the Commission of Audit will be Peter Crone, Chief Economist for the “Big Business” Council.
 

In addition to the Commission of Audit, the Productivity Commission has been tasked with a whole series of reviews into such things as pension rates and benefits, grants and concessions, taxes, industrial laws and union governance, child care, the motor vehicle industry as well as existing legislation that protects the natural environment and preserves national parks and conservation areas.

On the chopping block

Government spokespeople and public service bureaucrats have already leaked a few selective items, partly because they cannot contain their joy at the opportunity to belt the working class into submission, but also to test the water and work out how far they can go before all hell breaks loose.

Also on their list…

Postage stamps and rates and delivery frequency – as a prelude to full privatisation of Australia Post

Privatisation of Medibank Private

Privatisation of SBS

$6 “co-payment” to visit the doctor – and then get rid of bulk-billing altogether

National education curriculum and education funding

Parasite health funds

Just two days before Christmas, the government announced increases in the premiums for the private health funds ranging from 6-8%, almost triple the official level of inflation.  Over the past 15 years, average private health fund premiums have risen by 130%, while average prices have gone up by less than 50%.

For example, Medibank Private which posted $232.7 million profit last financial year, easily topping the $126.6 million it made in the previous year, has been granted a 6.5% lift in customer premiums.

Talk about fattening the cow for market! Now it’s fattening the cow for privatisation! That can only mean further increases down the track, while public health services are being run down and starved for funds.

Open slather for big business

While hacking into anything that benefits the people, the government has been smoothing the way for the corporate monopolies and big business to boost their profit-making. Hand-outs to the mining industry amount to $4.5 billion a year according to the Australia Institute, and pay for the roads, fuel, ports and railways that cart away our mineral wealth.

Not only are the carbon tax and mining tax going, going, gone, but so too are many regulations and limitations on foreign investments and environmental approvals, sneeringly referred to as “red tape” and “green tape”.

Perks such as ‘profit shifting’ to off-shore tax havens and negative gearing on investment properties will continue for the rich and better-off, but there will be no such relief for ordinary workers.

No choice but struggle

Waiting for a Labor government is no good. Working people will have to make a stand. They will have to find ways to get conversations going in their workplaces and communities, to get people organised to protest and to put demands on the government and the big business bosses. Demands not just to “back off” but to “get out of our way”. In fact, all hell should break loose!

Too many elephants

Vanguard February 2014 p. 2
Verity M.

  

                                                                             

Warren Mundine (above, right) delivered a speech to the Gama Festival  corporate dinner,    'Four Giant Steps: Shooting The Elephants'. 

The Gama Festival and conference on Indigenous culture, policy and economic development is held  in Darwin.  The conference audience was comprised primarily of a cross section of 'the most successful companies in Australia '. Mundine's speech was obviously tailored to this audience just as the advisory committee  he leads advising  Tony Abbott has structured its thinking to meet the needs of the Coalition and capital.

Mundine began  his speech with a run through of the seemingly intractable problems impacting on the lives of Aboriginal people, too well known to need reiterating here. These he attributed to failed policies over preceding decades but in  particular the failure of these  to challenge the collective ownership of land and the closed nature of remote communities.  These are two of the elephants in the room which, according to Mundine, impede economic development and 'wealth creation' in remote Aboriginal communities.

Mundine speaks of the possibility and desirability of the establishment of Aboriginal small business in remote areas and of course that is desirable and possible given funding, training and ongoing support, providing of course there is sufficient population to support the facility.

What Mundine is really pushing is the privatisation of Aboriginal land to facilitate commerce which in turn, so the conservative belief goes, creates  employment.  Private land ownership according to Mundine is "the foundation of commercial systems and a critical enabler for economic development". In another part of his speech, Mundine speaks of "outside investment" as a means of lifting the living standards  of remote Aboriginal communities. 

This kind of thinking fits in snugly with Abbot's message to the world that "Australia is open for business" or more accurately 'for sale'. The largest elephant in the room is obviously foreign investment.  It seems the prevailing vision is for Aboriginal lands to be open for business particularly the kind of business that delivers huge profits for international capital. Once the land is bought /99-year leased it can be developed in any way the new owners find most profitable unless the sale/lease is tightly regulated and this is not a regulating government. 

Open access to Aboriginal lands may entice some small businesses to set up a commercially viable business in an aboriginal community but opening land for commercial interests will primarily benefit global mining and agricultural capital which will move in, take over the land and give a few locals a job. Sounds like neo-colonialism, a lot like old colonialism that created the problem in the first place.

What is missing in Mundine's speech is the voices of the people living in the remote areas Mundine is talking about.  Mundine's committee is not going to solve the problems he itemises in hisspeech , nor is big business. 

Global capital is feverishly seeking investment opportunities, particularly in the energy sector and agriculture is also becoming a money spinner with Asian markets seeking more Australian produced food. Marketing Aboriginal land must sound very appealing to governments more interested in meeting the needs of international capital than in meeting the needs of their own people.
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Incidentally, Abbot has set up a committee to examine locations for dumping uranium waste - only local waste of course, but if government can find a bit of land to dump the waste of the international nuclear industry then it will be doing some capitalist a big favour.  They would not want to hold their breath however; there is almost universal resistance to using Australia as a dumping ground for the world's uranium waste.